


Beowulf and the Dragon

by pigeonking



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 01:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10426458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonking/pseuds/pigeonking
Summary: This is a sort of sequel to the events of my 2nd Doctor story The Grendel. Anyone familiar with the poem of Beowulf will know that later in his life Beowulf was a king and encountered a dragon...





	

The castle stood with its back to the sea at the top of the windswept and rocky hill. It was perfectly positioned for a strategic offence against any enemy army that might want to lay siege from the land. A fleet of ships harboured at the foot of the cliff protected the castle from anyone that might dare an attack from the sea and it also served as a last line of escape for those in the castle should it ever fall into enemy hands.

There were no armies laying siege to the castle on this particular day, however. Apart from the strong, biting wind all was calm and peaceful. Merchants were driving their horse-drawn carts up the hill and through the open castle gates, seeking to set up their stalls and pedal their wares to whosoever might take an interest in them.

No one really took much notice of the arrival of a wooden blue box that slowly faded into existence at the foot of the far eastern wall of the castle. Its appearance heralded by a flashing light on top and a howling and grinding cacophony that was all but lost on the wind.

Once the box had solidified the noise ceased, as did the flashing of the light and seconds later a door on the front of the box opened, allowing two figures to step out of it; a man and a woman.

The man was tall and skinny with short spiky brown hair and he was wearing a light brown long coat over a darker brown pinstripe trouser suit and jacket. On his feet he sported a pair of red and white Converse trainers.

The woman was slightly shorter than the man. She was a rather beautiful young black woman with long black hair tied back into a topknot that allowed the hair to sit atop her head like black peacock feathers. The woman was wearing a dark red leather jacket over a low cut green T-shirt, as well as a figure flattering pair of blue jeans and sensible black shoes. She was visibly shivering from the chilly winds that buffeted them upon their exit from the blue box. Her tall companion, however, seemed unfazed by the biting temperatures.

“It’s bloody freezing!” the young woman complained as she hugged herself in an effort to keep warm.

“Nonsense, Martha. Bit of cold air never did anyone any harm. You’ll get used to it.” The man grinned impishly as he pulled the door of the box closed.

“I don’t want to get used to it!” Martha grumbled. “Can’t we go somewhere else? Like the Bahamas, or something?”

“This is 9th Century Geatland. How could the Bahamas possibly compete with this?” the man replied, opening his arms expansively as if he were embracing the air. He took in a deep breath and inhaled the cold mountain air. “Ah! Molto bene!”

“I’ll Molto you if you don’t shut up.” Martha teased. “Seriously, Doctor, can’t I at least go back in the TARDIS and put on a warmer jacket?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

“Moan, moan, moan! I don’t remember Rose ever moaning this much!” he muttered irritably as he shrugged off his big coat and draped it over Martha’s shoulders.

He, of course, failed to notice Martha’s face crumple into a frown at the mention of Rose, his former companion who had travelled with him prior to Martha.

“There, is that better?” the Doctor asked her.

“It’s a bit big.” Martha forced herself to smile, “But it is a lot warmer, thank you.”

Had this gesture come from any man, but the Doctor then Martha would have seen it as being sweet and romantic. Unfortunately, Martha was fully aware that no such sentiment had been intended by the Doctor.

“So what have we come here for anyway?” Martha wondered.

They began to stroll alongside the castle walls towards the gates where the merchants continued to file in.

“Curiosity.” The Doctor replied. “Have you ever heard of the old English epic poem called _Beowulf_?”

“Yeah. I studied it in my English Lit class at school. What about it?” the Doctor’s long coat was dragging slightly in the muddy ground as Martha walked, but the Doctor didn’t seem to mind.

“Well, that whole bit at the beginning about Beowulf fighting Grendel?” the Doctor phrased the statement like a question.

“Yes?” Martha prompted.

“That was me.” The Doctor told her with a cheeky grin, holding his head up high with something akin to pride. “I got mistaken for Beowulf.”

“You what?” Martha turned to look at him with incredulous disbelief, eyeing his skinny frame with poorly concealed doubt. “Now hang on. Don’t forget I’ve read the poem. Are you trying to tell me that you wrestled Grendel naked and without weapons and tore his arm off with your bare hands???”

The Doctor looked uncomfortable under Martha’s gaze and fingered his collar nervously.

“Well, no. That was Jamie who did that bit. Except there was no wrestling and he wasn’t naked… I think… and he had some help from a bunch of Danish Viking warriors. But I came up with the plan that made that all possible.” The Doctor explained.

“Okay, so what has any of this got to do with why we’re here now?” Martha pressed.

“The later part with the dragon, when Beowulf becomes king in his homeland and fights his final terrible battle against the fire breathing dragon.” The Doctor told her.

“You want to see if that’s true as well.” Martha realised with a smile.

“If it’s true and what part I might play in it.” The Doctor agreed. He broke into an enormous, infectious grin that had Martha smiling from ear to ear. “Imagine it, Martha… a real dragon! If the legends are true!”

The Doctor’s enthusiasm was as infectious as his grin. Martha offered the Doctor her arm and he gladly took it.

“Well come on.” Martha said. “What are we waiting for?”  

The Doctor and Martha reached the castle gates just as the last of the merchants was being let in.

A couple of burly looking warriors in chainmail and shiny metal helmets were questioning the merchants as they entered and checking the contents of their carts to ensure that they weren’t smuggling in anything illegal. The warriors were both bearded behemoths that could have been separated at birth, assuming of course that they weren’t actually brothers and they did not need the spears that they carried to appear intimidating.

As the last merchant passed through the gates it was the Doctor and Martha’s turn to approach the guards.

“Let me do the talking.” The Doctor whispered down to Martha as they drew closer to the scowling warriors.

“Who are you?” the first warrior on the left growled as he eyed the Doctor with contempt.

“I…” the Doctor declared, “Am the great and powerful Beowulf!”

He suddenly found two spear tips levelled at his throat and gulped nervously.

“Or not.” The Doctor back-pedalled desperately. “I might not be him at all.”

Martha assessed the situation and thought about what she could do to help her friend.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded, “Why can’t he be Beowulf?”

The first warrior shifted his gaze slightly towards Martha. She saw his steely grim visage soften a little as he looked upon her; it seemed that the burly Viking warrior might just fancy her a little. Good, she could work with that if she needed to.

“He cannot be who he claims to be.” The warrior told her. “Your friend must be an ignorant fool indeed to even attempt such a deception here!”

“Why is that?” Martha pressed.

“King Beowulf is lord and master within these walls. It is Beowulf that I serve and so I know that your friend is not he!”

The Doctor tutted and rolled his eyes.

“Of course!” he exclaimed. “I am so thick! It didn’t even occur to me that Beowulf the legend might actually have been based on a real living person.”

“What does he speak of?” the warrior asked, addressing Martha and all but ignoring the Doctor.

“Ignore him, he’s an idiot. I’m his carer. I’m supposed to look after him and make sure that he doesn’t get into situations like this.” Martha told the warrior apologetically.

“You have my sympathies, miss.” The warrior bowed. He lowered his spear and his colleague followed suit.

The Doctor glared at Martha with evident disapproval.

“Please, call me Martha.” She told the warrior with a smile.

“I am Wiglaf.” The warrior replied, returning the smile.

“Alright, maybe you two can make googly eyes over a horn of mead later.” The Doctor huffed, “I may not be Beowulf, but I was once mistaken for him a long time ago.”

Wiglaf looked at Martha as if to say ‘is he for real?’

Martha nodded. “Yeah, I’m afraid he’s not making that bit up. I think.”

Wiglaf looked at the Doctor and laughed heartily.

“Tell me, was it a dark night when you were mistaken for my lord, Beowulf? Or perhaps there was a fog? Were you perhaps mistaken by a blind man?”

“Yeah go on, laugh it up!” the Doctor sighed.

“I will take you to meet my king. I am sure that this is a story that he would much like to hear.” Wiglaf stood to one side and gestured that the Doctor and Martha should proceed ahead of him.

And so the two time travellers entered the castle of Beowulf.

 

Wiglaf led the Doctor and Martha through the busy market area where the merchants had set up their stalls to sell anything ranging from animal pelts, expensive dyed silks imported from Miklagard, livestock and jewellery.

Soon they left the courtyard and entered the castle proper. The Doctor and Martha were taken along dimly lit stone corridors until they eventually arrived at the throne room.

This room was essentially a great feasting hall as it was dominated by a large rectangular dark oak table lined with benches and headed by the ornate golden throne in which sat the great man that they had come to see.

King Beowulf was a hulking bear of a man who cut an imposing figure upon his throne even despite the fact that he was now a grey bearded old man in his late sixties. He looked resplendent in his gold arm rings and chainmail; a golden circlet with a ruby at its centre sat upon his long braided hair and he wore the pelt of a wolf over his shoulders like a cloak.

The king was not alone. He was flanked by half a dozen bodyguards, three at either side of him and there appeared to be guests present. There were around ten other armour clad men sat around the great table. None of them carried any weapons and Martha spotted a pile of discarded swords, spears and axes lying by the entrance way which she assumed that these men had been obliged to remove before entering. One of the men sat at Beowulf’s right hand side and was dressed in finer clothes (silks and mink pelts with more gold arm rings). Martha guessed that he was the leader of these men.

“The king is entertaining some visitors from a neighbouring kingdom. I will need to formally announce you before he will see you.” Wiglaf explained to Martha. It seemed that he was firmly convinced that she was the one in charge.

The Doctor was observing the proceedings that were being undertaken within the great hall.

The leader of the visitors had risen from his bench and was presenting Beowulf with a gift; a golden chain that carried on it what appeared to be an ornately carved black rock which itself contained a milky-white gem.

“My lord, Beowulf. Please accept this humble gift as a symbol of friendship between our two kingdoms.” The man was saying with due reverence.

The Doctor scrutinised the black talisman with its white gem. There was something disturbingly familiar about it.

“Thank you, Lord Brynjar.” Beowulf gratefully accepted the gift, holding it up to the light so that he might inspect the unusual looking stone. “How came you by this? I have not seen the like before.”

It then occurred to the Doctor where he _had_ seen the stone before.

Wiglaf was about to step forward to announce them when the Doctor beat him to it.

“My Lord, Beowulf! I would not accept that gift if I were you!” the Doctor called out urgently.

Martha gave him a look.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing???” she hissed.

Lord Brynjar turned to glare at the Doctor with scarcely concealed malice.

“Who is this?” he demanded.

Beowulf rose to his full height, almost seven feet tall.

“Yes, Wiglaf, who is this man?” the king asked a little less forcefully than Brynjar.

“Apologies, my lord. This man is an idiot. The fair maiden, Martha has brought him here to tell your Majesty a story which he might find amusing.” Wiglaf explained.

“Forget the story. You need to get that object as far away from here as possible and have these men arrested!” the Doctor insisted.

“And why, idiot, must I do that?” Beowulf asked with surprising patience.

“That item is a device which will bring terrible death and destruction upon your kingdom if you don’t get rid of it and these men, I believe, are not men at all, but actually Zygons!” the Doctor explained.

“The man clearly is very deranged indeed!” Brynjar remarked with a scornful sneer. “I suggest that it is this man that must be arrested.”

“Are you sure, Doctor?” Martha asked her friend.

“Martha you’ve met the Zygons. You’ve seen the signalling device that they use to summon their Skarasen. That artefact on the end of that gold chain is going to summon a monster… a dragon… to destroy you all!” the Doctor declared.

“More nonsense!” Brynjar snarled through gritted teeth.

“Wiglaf, have the idiot thrown out of the castle. The maiden, Martha may remain if she wishes.” Beowulf commanded.

“As you desire, my lord.” Wiglaf stepped forward and took the Doctor by the arm.

The Doctor tried to pull away, but the warrior’s grip was too strong for him and he felt himself being pulled towards the doorway.

“Martha, sonic screwdriver. Setting 152, full power. Wait for my signal.” The Doctor called out desperately as he dug his heels into the floor of the castle in a vain effort to delay his eviction.

Martha turned her back on the gathered men in the throne room so that they could not see what she was doing. She took the screwdriver out of the Doctor’s coat pocket and adjusted the setting to the one the Doctor had instructed.

“Stop the girl! What is she doing?” Brynjar demanded, his gruff voice tainted with anxiety. A couple of his men started to advance on Martha.

The Doctor was still struggling in Wiglaf’s grip as they got closer and closer to the exit.

“No hard feelings, eh, Brynjar? Let Zygons be Zygons… Now Martha!!!” the Doctor shouted.

Martha spun round to face the room again and held the sonic screwdriver before her in both hands as if she were brandishing a deadly weapon. She looked away and closed her eyes and triggered the screwdriver.

Brynjar’s two warriors were almost upon her when the sonic screwdriver began to emit a shrill, piercing whine that jarred the eardrums of everyone present.

Beowulf and his bodyguards screwed their faces in discomfort and covered their ears with their hands. Even Wiglaf was forced to release his grip on the Doctor so that he could protect his own ears from the sonic onslaught. Martha wished she could afford that luxury, but with the whining screwdriver in both hands she was unable to do anything to ease her own discomfort. Only the Doctor seemed unaffected as he stood up straight and flicked the creases out of his suit where Wiglaf had been holding him.

Dramatic as the effect on all the humans was, the effect on Brynjar and his retinue of warriors was even more shocking.

Like the humans, Brynjar and his men clutched at their ears with obvious discomfort, but something else was also happening to them.

“Let’s see you concentrate hard enough to maintain your human disguises now!” the Doctor declared triumphantly.

The faces and bodies of Brynjar and his men seemed to twist and distort like reflections in a carnival mirror then as one they began to transmogrify into something all the more grotesque.

The creatures were still vaguely humanoid in that they all had two arms, two legs and one head, but that was where the similarities to anything human ended. They all had orangey-green leathery skin and appeared to be naked. Their fingers and toes ended in wicked hook-like talons and their heads and bodies were covered in rounded growths or protuberances like the suckers on an octopus’s tentacles. The heads were also large and grotesque in proportion to the rest of their bodies and gave them the appearance of tall malevolent, nightmarish alien foetuses.

“Just as I suspected… Zygons!” the Doctor said.

Martha couldn’t stand the whine of the screwdriver any longer, but dared not turn it off while it kept the Zygons disoriented. The decision, however, was quickly taken from her as one of the Zygons that had been advancing on her lashed out with a clawed fist and knocked her to the ground. Martha fell and hit her head, losing consciousness, the screwdriver tumbling from her fingers. The whine ceased almost instantly.

Everyone who had been discombobulated by the sonic assault soon began to recover, but unfortunately this included the Zygons.

The Doctor quickly ran to Martha’s side and checked her over to see if she had sustained a serious head injury. Fortunately there seemed to be no permanent damage.

“Destroy the idiot!” Brynjar was snarling angrily and the Doctor looked up to see the same two Zygons that had been advancing on Martha now advancing on him.

Beowulf had also regained his senses and was more than a little bewildered to find his great hall teeming with monsters.

“Trolls! It would appear that the idiot spoke sense after all.” He proclaimed.

Beowulf reached under his throne and drew forth a great looking broadsword.

“Slay the beasts!” he bellowed before leading his bodyguards into the fray.

The Doctor, meanwhile, desperately reached for his fallen sonic as the two Zygons loomed upon him. He just managed to get his hand upon it and was about to activate it again when it occurred to him that doing so would compromise Beowulf and his men as well as the Zygons. That hesitation was all that the one Zygon needed as it lunged at the Doctor with one outstretched talon.

Then the Zygon was howling with pain and holding a stump in the air where its hand had been, black blood spraying out of it in all directions.

The Doctor looked to see Wiglaf standing by him and Martha with a bloodied seax in his hand.

“Fear not, idiot. Wiglaf will protect you.” The Geat warrior assured him.

Before the Doctor could respond in any way Wiglaf rushed forward, seax raised and cut down the already stricken Zygon with a blow to where its neck would have been if it had one. The Zygon fell dead to the floor, more black blood erupting from its injuries.

With one Zygon down Wiglaf quickly turned his attention to the other.

The Zygon rasped with murderous fury blazing in its small pig-like eyes. It flailed its arms at Wiglaf with its claws in an effort to slash him, but the huge Geat danced nimbly to and fro as he waited for his own opportunity to strike.

“Don’t let him sting you!” the Doctor warned.

The warning, however, was far from necessary as the agile warrior pirouetted around the Zygon’s attack and slid the blade of his seax across its belly. The creature’s abdomen split open like an over ripe melon and a messy tangle of greyish intestines spilled forth onto the flagstones. The Zygon looked down at the steaming pile of its own innards with a look of shocked disbelief before keeling over like a stricken oak tree.

Wiglaf spun to face the rest of the room and saw that Brynjar and the rest of the Zygons had been similarly dispatched by Beowulf and his bodyguards.

Brynjar lay on his back, mortally wounded and with Beowulf’s broadsword still protruding from his chest which was rising and falling rapidly as his last breaths were escaping him.

“You may have slain us, but we will be avenged.” Brynjar rasped weakly. “The Skarasen is already on its way!” With those final words the Zygon leader finally expired.

“What is this Scar-Son that he spoke of?” Beowulf wondered, looking to the Doctor for an explanation as he pulled his sword free of Brynjar’s corpse.

Martha was beginning to come to and the Doctor helped her to her feet.

“What did I miss?” Martha was asking groggily; then she spotted the room full of eviscerated Zygons.

“Oh.” She said simply.

“Not Scar-Son, Skarasen.” The Doctor corrected, “It’s a bit like a dragon only it doesn’t have wings or breathe fire. That thing that you’re now wearing around your neck is like a beacon that draws it here. You need to take it off and get rid of it. Get it as far away from here as possible! Once the Skarasen has destroyed the beacon then it will leave and you’ll never see it again, but while you’re wearing it and it is still here, the Skarasen will tear this place and anyone who gets in its way apart trying to get at it.”

Beowulf grabbed at the amulet around his neck and tried to tear it off, but as he did so four sharp spikes slid out of the bottom of the beacon and embedded themselves deep into the warrior-king’s chest causing him to cry out in agony.

“The cursed object will not let me remove it!” Beowulf snarled through gritted teeth; he was clearly feeling a great deal of pain and discomfort, but was doing his utmost best to conceal it.

“Then you need to get away from this castle as quickly as possible and we’ll have to find some other way of defeating the Skarasen.” The Doctor urged.

A deafening inhuman roar reverberated through the castle.

Martha ran to the nearest window and looked outside.

“It’s too late! The Skarasen is already here!” she cried, “And what was that you said about them not having wings?”

“You what?” the Doctor exclaimed incredulously.

He dashed to the window and looked out.

A gargantuan monstrosity could be seen rising slowly up into the air above the castle, having flown up from the sea and up the side of the cliff. Water still cascaded from its obsidian scales as it flapped its immense bat-like leathery wings, regarding the panicking people below it with its dark hungry eyes. The Skarasen resembled a serpentine dinosaur with its long snake-like neck and its oversized head, the long snout of a mouth crammed with barbed, hook-like teeth. It had four limbs that ended in four toed (or fingered) claws bearing talons that could probably rend metal as surely as scissors cut through paper. Then there were the huge pterodactyl wings that bore it aloft and the long whiplash tail trailing behind it. The Skarasen truly did look like an awesome, terrifying dragon of legend.

“Skarasens are genetically engineered cyborgs. The Zygons must have engineered this one to have wings.” The Doctor paused as if a horrible thought had occurred to him. “I hope they didn’t give it fiery breath as well!”

Beowulf and Wiglaf had also joined the Doctor and Martha at the window and they gazed, awe-stricken at the formidable sight that met them.

“We must get out there and slay the beast!” Beowulf declared tightening his grip on his sword.

“I will fight with you, Lord!” Wiglaf nodded, hefting his still bloody seax.

The Doctor turned to face them.

“You’re both fools! You wouldn’t stand a chance against that thing!” he protested, “King Beowulf, you need to get on a horse and ride away from here as quickly as you can. Lure it away until I can come up with a plan to defeat it.”

“You truly are an idiot, Doctor, if you believe that I would flee like a whipped whelp!”

“Why not?” the Doctor replied, “Your bodyguards already have.”

Beowulf turned and found that his retinue of guards had indeed fled. Only Wiglaf remained.

“No matter.” Beowulf insisted, “Wiglaf and I will make short work of yon, Scar-Son!”

Before the Doctor could argue further Beowulf ran out of the throne room, closely followed by the faithful Wiglaf.

“The fools!” the Doctor muttered angrily. “They’ll only get themselves killed!”

“But, Doctor, in the poem Beowulf does face the dragon and he kills it.” Martha reminded him.

“If you remember Beowulf also dies from his injuries.” The Doctor replied, “Besides that poem hasn’t been written yet. Things are still in flux… things could still change. Beowulf doesn’t have to die. There has to be another way!”

“What can we do?” Martha asked helplessly.

“There’s always something. Come on!” the Doctor ran off at those words and Martha ran after him.

It was hard for her to run under the weight of the Doctor’s coat, however.

Martha shrugged it off. “Oi!” she called after the Doctor and he stopped and looked at her as if to say ‘what is it now you insignificant human being?’

She chucked him his coat and then ran past him.

“Well come on then!” she called back over her shoulder.

The Doctor sighed, slipped his coat back on and then ran after her.

 

Outside in the courtyard people were running about in panicked terror. Some sought shelter within the stone walls of the main castle while others stampeded towards the gates in an effort to escape. Just as many were milling about shrieking aimlessly with no direction or purpose, just sheer blind terror.

Beowulf and Wiglaf were wading through this sea of chaos to try and reach the gates themselves so that they could lure the Skarasen into the open to fight it.

“Stand aside!” Wiglaf was bellowing at the top of his lungs, “Your king seeks to pass you so that he can deliver you from this beast!”

The ‘beast’ had not attacked as yet and was currently hovering over the castle tracking Beowulf’s movement through the throng of people as he progressed towards the main gates.

Martha and the Doctor emerged from the castle interior. The Doctor spotted Beowulf and Wiglaf battling their way to the gates. Martha, however, was looking up and couldn’t tear her eyes away from the looming threat of the Skarasen.

It was that moment that the Skarasen chose to descend into the crowd, its hind legs pointed at the ground as it came down, the wicked talons extended and prepared.

Beowulf saw the creature coming at him. He bounded onto one of the abandoned merchant’s carts and then onto another. He continued this action, using the carts like stepping stones to bypass the crowd as he made his way now to one of the towers, hoping to gain access to the battlements and higher ground and also to lure the Skarasen away from his people.

The Skarasen checked its descent, tracking Beowulf’s movements. The flapping of its great wings buffeted the people below like a miniature localised hurricane. The Skarasen twisted its great body in mid-air and set off in pursuit of its quarry.

Beowulf reached the tower and ran inside, sprinting up the steps as fast as his body would carry him. The Geat king lamented that he wasn’t as young as he used to be.

He was halfway up when the Skarasen’s head burst through the bottom of the tower, its ravaging jaws barely missing Beowulf’s heels as he leapt up the stone stairway.

Beowulf turned and leapt upon the Skarasen’s head before it was drawn back outside again.

The Skarasen reared out of the tower with its prey clinging to the top of its head. Beowulf slid down so that he was more upon the upper neck than the head. Gripping hold of the scales in one hand with the other he took his sword and began to hack at the tough hide of the creature.

The Skarasen rose into the air and flew as fast as it could away from the castle with its unwanted cargo. As it came over the sea again it performed a barrel roll in order to try and dislodge the pesky human. Beowulf clung on for dear life and somehow managed to stay on; however, as it righted itself again, Beowulf found himself sliding further down its long neck until he was sat astride its back between the leathery wings.

Beowulf straddled the creature, wrapping his muscular legs around it so that he could take his sword in both hands. The Skarasen twisted its neck to try and snatch Beowulf in its jaws from its own back, but it wasn’t quite flexible enough to manage it.

Beowulf upended his sword and brought the blade down with all his might into the nape of the Skarasen’s neck, right between its shoulder blades. The point bit through the scaly hide and slid into the flesh beneath and the Skarasen let out an inhuman shriek of agony. Beowulf twisted the blade, sending up a gout of greenish black ichor, and drove it deeper still until it was pushed in right up to the gilded hilt. Then Beowulf tugged hard and ripped the sword back out again, releasing more blood into the air, some of it spattering his chainmail. He tossed the sword into the air, the weapon spinning end over end until Beowulf caught it once more by the handle and the blade was pointing up again.

The Skarasen was thrashing wildly in its efforts to dislodge him. Beowulf continued to cling on desperately, using his free hand to once more grip the scales which were now slippery with the creature’s blood. With the sword Beowulf hacked once to his right into the Skarasen’s wing. The resulting damage to the wing had an immediate effect upon the Skarasen as it was no longer able to effectively flap the stricken appendage. With only one wing essentially keeping them up it wasn’t long before both Skarasen and Beowulf were hurtling downwards towards the sea below. Beowulf could no longer maintain his hold upon the creature and he found himself freefalling alongside the wounded beast. Man and monster struck the water together like bullets fired out of a gun and disappeared beneath the waves.

 

The Doctor, Martha and Wiglaf had managed to find their way down to the harbour at the bottom of the cliff using a secret pathway known only by the king and his most trusted aides. When they reached the wooden docking pier they were in time to see the king’s body being brought in by a group of fishermen who had hauled him out of the sea.

Wiglaf did not wait for the fishing boat to complete its mooring. He ran down the wooden gantry and leapt onto the boat to kneel at the side of his stricken monarch. Beowulf’s body, where the skin could be seen was very badly bruised and it was clear that many bones had been broken when he had hit the water, but his eyes were open and he was still alive… just.

Wiglaf held onto his king’s hand and openly wept to see the man he so admired lying so broken.

Beowulf gazed up into Wiglaf’s tear stained face and managed a weak smile through the pain of his injuries.

“Did I win?” he asked with a chuckle which sent spasms of pain coursing through his body.

“Aye, my Lord. You did win at that.” Wiglaf returned the smile.

“Let me look at him. I’m training to become a doctor.” Martha said.

“There’s nothing you can do for him.” The Doctor replied sadly, but there was something else in the Doctor’s voice too… respect and awe at Beowulf’s victory.

The beacon on the end of the chain had now detached itself from Beowulf’s chest following the death of the Skarasen. Wiglaf gently removed the cursed amulet from around his dying king’s neck and cast it into the waters.

“You were the only one that stayed with me, Wiglaf.” Beowulf sighed weakly.

“I did only what any man would have done, my Lord.” Wiglaf protested.

“Nonsense.” Beowulf balked. “You were the only man that stayed when others of my retinue had already fled. For that reason I name you as my successor. When I am gone, you shall be king.”

“I am not worthy.” Wiglaf bowed, but he did not protest further.

Beowulf turned his head gingerly to look up at the Doctor and Martha where they stood on the pier.

“The girl, Martha would make a fine queen; and the Doctor… I suspect that he may not be an idiot after all.” Beowulf chuckled one last time before closing his eyes as if to go to sleep. A final breath escaped through his lips and then he was still. The great and legendary Beowulf was no more.

 

It took the Doctor and Martha a good half hour to make their way back up the cliff and back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor unlocked the door of the police box, but paused and looked at Martha with a wolfish grin before he entered.

“You know Queen Martha Jones of Geatland does have a nice ring to it.” He smirked.

“Get in, you idiot!” Martha scalded with mock indignation.

They entered the TARDIS and closed the doors behind them.

Moments later there was a howling, grinding noise and the blue police telephone box slowly faded away.

 

**The End**


End file.
